“That expression of yours tells me you are having second thoughts, Doctor.”

  “Not at all, Instructor. This simulation in particular means more than the others. It is a, how you say, ‘sentimental regret.’”

  -An exchange in the PARADISO Observation Room.

  The Day Before the Early Assessment…

  Jeremiah knocked on the door to the classroom. It was the weekend, and it was no surprise that Jeremiah had hid himself away from everyone until now. With a single night being the thin layer between him and a test that will change the trajectory of his entire life, Jeremiah believed he was far from acting overdramatic. Ashley and Isaac disagreed, but that was expected.

  They weren’t the same as him.

  “Come in.” The deep and gentle voice of Roger’s beckoned him to open the door, like a genuine caretaker greeting a patient on their deathbed. The door creaked as Jeremiah stepped inside. In the corner of the classroom sat the deceptively hulking Instructor in a small and cluttered desk. Roger rarely used it during class, and yet he seemed to fit comfortably despite his size. He didn’t look up from his papers, but he greeted Jeremiah all the same.

  “Jeremiah? It’s still the weekend. Did you leave something at your desk?” Roger smiled, scribbling something down with rigid haste.

  “No.”

  Something in Jeremiah’s voice tore Roger from his notes. He finally looked up, seeing what his student held in his hands.

  “Ah, questions about the Early Assessment. . .”

  “Not exactly.”

  Roger gestured to a seat across from his desk, a small add-on to the cramped office in the corner of the classroom. Jeremiah obliged without a word, slowly sitting down with a sharp inhale. The two clearly didn’t fit in the seats they had taken, but they squeezed in nonetheless.

  Sitting across from him now, Jeremiah realized how unsure he was of Instructor Hill. Was he losing faith in him like the others, because of his Unblessed status? No. It was how he acted that made Jeremiah worry. The picture of friendliness he displayed here would put even a stranger at ease. They haven’t seen him in that abandoned construction site, breaking a man while wearing the same expression.

  “Well?” He said.

  Jeremiah took in one last breath before submerging.

  “I compared Charlie's team's document with the other two.”

  Instructor Hill didn’t react.

  “I see. Why?”

  Jeremiah continued, “I know it’s against the rules. I know. But I could tell something wasn’t right with what we got.”

  “And what conclusion did you come to?”

  Jeremiah kept his face from swelling up, a classic sign of irritation.

  “That we’ve been given the short stick.”

  “‘The short stick’, you think?”

  “Alpha Team’s mission was detailed from start to finish, same thing for Bravo. We only know one thing about our mission. Worst of all, there’s only three of us.”

  Mr. Hill shook his head.

  “The class is currently at an uneven number. Testing someone twice would be even more unreasonable.”

  “So it just had to be me?” Jeremiah grimaced. “Why? When there’s way more capable students, why me? There’s Alex, Thomas, Claudius, not to mention a Goldenchild!”

  Jeremiah winced at his own outburst. How could he have let himself be so childish all of a sudden? Losing his temper wouldn’t change a thing. What could I do to change this? What am I even doing here? Instead of screaming in the direction of his Instructor, Jeremiah forced himself to truly look. Mr. Hill’s eyes betrayed a sincere apology to the point Jeremiah’s swollen cheeks turned pink in embarassment. He needed to get out of here, pray Mr. Hill would forget this meeting and everything he said.

  As Jeremiah prepared to stand, Mr. Hill spoke.

  “You’re right.” He said.

  Jeremiah’s mouth lost its footing for a moment.

  “A-about what?”

  “It just had to be you.” Mr. Hill’s facial expression hardened, yet his eyes glistened with emotion. “You are neither an afterthought, nor were you singled out. That being said, it had to be you.”

  Mr. Hill slowly rose out of his chair, and in three long strides, he circled the desk to reach Jeremiah’s side and what he had said next. . .

  “Froggyyyy? Earth to Froggy!”

  Jeremiah’s awareness returned to the present. His intricately augmented present, that is. Charlie Team visiting the mall made more sense than ever.

  After all, they stood in the smoldering ruins of one.

  It was a familiar sight, though Jeremiah never visited the Temple Avenue Memorial when it was a premier mall in Seraph years ago. Through the impact dents and gray haze of smoke, the prestigious shopping center of exotic merchandise had probably looked breathtaking in its glass enclosures held up by marble columns.

  They stood in front of a statue of a robed man, or woman—the statue was missing everything from the waist up. Its hopelessly crumbled top half met its resting place in the fountain well, displacing the murky water. The unclean liquid made a foul attempt to mix with a strange oil as it caked around the soles of Jeremiah’s shoes. As for the source of the oil, it seemed to leak from the countless android bodies lining the floor in mounds.

  “Sorry.” He said in a low voice.

  “Hmm~” Ashley’s singsong hum contrasted the look in her eyes. As deceptively analytical as usual, she was currently dissecting Jeremiah’s psyche by his facial expressions alone.

  “That must be hard for you.” Jeremiah smiled, though it hardly reached his eyes.

  “Huh?”

  “Trying to get a read on me with a face like mine.”

  She didn’t respond to him on that one. Jeremiah appreciated the short-lived silence. Ashley soon moved the one-sided conversation to the mission at hand.

  “So like, where’s our lucky guy? Hiding already?” She grunted as she searched for open spots devoid of android corpses to step on.

  “Shouldn’t be hard to miss.” Jeremiah said as he gave a more cursory glance of his surroundings.

  “It certainly can be hard to miss.” Natali said. She traipsed through the bodies like they were mud on uneven ground. Jeremiah and Ashley both noted a grave tone to her normally neutral voice.

  “Oh, so now you wanna mention that?” Ashley shook her head, her hoop earrings bouncing side to side.

  “Now that I have confirmed that we are in the Temple Avenue Shopping Center, I am now sure of what our enemy is capable of.”

  Jeremiah grit his teeth. So he was right. This wasn’t just a made up simulation. It took from something that happened years ago. An engineering tragedy. Now Natali’s behavior was understandable.

  “Ashley, this is Temple City’s Shopping Center.”

  Ashley gawked at Jeremiah, then her surroundings.

  “Wait, this is the T.A. Mall? But this place was totally wrecked when we were like, nine!”

  “That’s because Paradiso can only simulate events from the past.” Natali said. “This event confirmed that suspicion of mine as well.”

  Ashley gave up on finding a neat path and began an unwieldy march towards Natali, who began walking towards an army of escalators in varying levels of disuse.

  “Since you wanna be talkative today, go ahead and let me know why you have all the facts on our bad guy.”

  “Because it’s mine.”

  Jeremiah closed his eyes, wincing at the audible pain in Natali’s voice. Ashley’s posture stiffened at those words, and her eyes narrowed as her voice lowered.

  “Explain.”

  Natali scoffed, “You truly don’t know the shame of the Amatore Family?”

  “Besides you? Not really~” Ashley grimaced. “Explain.”

  Natali brushed off the scalding response with a hand through her long red hair as she began her explanation. Though Jeremiah knew the gist, he followed behind the two, listening to the story from the horse’s mouth.

  “The Amatore Family come from a long line of inventors. Not a single company could compete with our specialized Gear, save for Dr.Hardt’s HardTek. Though we dominated the market for combat Gear, my father always looked to the future. My father had a specific interest in robotics, thinking they would be the future of heroism if they could outright suppress those who misused their Blessing.”

  Natali went silent for a moment, and Ashley didn’t bother to have patience.

  “And?”

  “And he made an android. Not the first man to design one, but the prototypical androids he wanted to create were combat androids meant for the capability of defeating villains of any classification.”

  “And it lead to this, somehow?”

  “A malfunction occurred. It went berserk somehow, and escaped from AmaTek Lab 1 with an arsenal of ammunition. Temple Avenue’s Shopping Center happened to be very close to AmaTek Lab 1.”

  Jeremiah could not see her expression from behind, but Natali’s normally perfect posture sagged just a little. The desire to make up for a failure she had nothing to do with but in name. An uphill battle she was thrown into just by being born who she was. . .

  Ashley attempted to lessen her nervousness with a whistle.

  “Sounds like we’re totally screwed~”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Jeremiah opened his mouth to attempt a rebuttal, but Natali’s voice cut through first.

  “No, we will pass. That is, if you two can handle your end of things. I’ll need a moment.”

  Jeremiah nodded. No point in complaining about Natali’s piss-poor cooperation skills. Ashley slowed down to match her pace with Jeremiah. She shook her head and jabbed a thumb at Natali as she began to outpace them in her uniformly wide strides.

  “It’s too bad that if she fails, we fail.”

  “Ashley. . .”

  “I’m just saying, Froggy. Our only plan is to hope she decides to do anything with her Blessing. That same Blessing she totally refuses to tell us about.”

  “I said I would trust her.”

  “Like, why?” Ashley’s voice sharpened in accusation. “What’s so good about that frigid skank anyways?!”

  “That’s not the point!” Jeremiah shouted. Ashley flinched at his voice. They both desperately attempted to talk over their own respective explosions.

  “A-anyways, We need to be on the same page for this. Today’s Color is gray, so there’s a lot to work with here—”

  Ashley placed her hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder, eyes widened in mortified realization. Jeremiah’s eyes widened as well, in fear of the unknown.

  “What?”

  “So um, you know how, like, my chosen color changes when I fall asleep?” Ashley stammered. “I guess the Paradiso thingie counts as sleeping.”

  “What did it change to?” Jeremiah groaned. He didn’t notice until now that her eye color was no longer that deep gray from a few minutes earlier, when they were in a different time entirely.

  “Looks like it’s a nice hickory brown, h-haha.”

  Things were already getting derailed. What could she even use with that color? Chunks of wood? But before he could agonize any further, Ashley’s long acrylics dug into his shoulder.

  “Oh no.” She whispered. Jeremiah looked up and traced the trajectory of her frightened stare.

  Oh no, indeed. Dozens of yards away and above them, on another floor entirely, stood a behemoth of a machine. Unlike the androids at their feet, the one above them did not try to poorly emulate humanity in its features. Its bulky metal torso was more spherical than anything, with thickly-corded arms and stubby-wheeled feet, both armored in bloody, oily plating. True to its prototypical state, its body looked more like the framework for a machine, reminding Jeremiah of the skinless mannequins in a biology class. The monstrosity stood unnervingly still as it overlooked the railing above, so still that Jeremiah almost believed it was deactivated.

  Until he heard the barely audible whine of its eyeballs extending from its head, magnifying itself to stare at Ashley and Jeremiah.

  The adrenaline started pumping when its eyes began to shine a deep red. The android placed its hands on the railing, and Jeremiah knew what would happen next. He turned to run, pulling Ashley with him.

  “He’s coming down!”

  “Holy shit!”

  The android’s siren blared like a roaring lion. Jeremiah couldn’t help but look behind him as the combat machine launched itself over the railing with a small jet boost from behind. It fell upon where they stood only seconds ago, and the immediate shockwave convinced Jeremiah they almost died. The ground flew away from them as the crash sent them flying. They sailed across the mall, and the weightlessness was soon replaced with pain as they slammed against a marble column.

  Jeremiah had taken the brunt of the impact. He had wrapped his arms around Ashley mid-air. Pain exploded from the center of his spine as he shattered through the column. They rolled into a barrier of synthetic corpses.

  “Ow. . .” Ashley whined.

  “You think you’re in pain. . .?” Jeremiah let go of her and tried his best to regain his bearings. He surveyed his back with one hand, marveling at his own movement. His spine should have been broken, he should have been concussed at the least. Only a small trickle of blood trailed down from the back of his scalp. The nanomachines worked this well? A flood of emotion nearly drowned out the pain.

  He was getting closer. Closer to reaching that summit he only dreamed of when he looked in the mirror.

  The siren of the machine monster blared once more, and the foundation-shaking footsteps from behind told Jeremiah to put his newfound constitution to use. He rose to his feet.

  “Ashley, get some distance and find out how to beat this thing.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll buy you some time.”

  Ashley shot up, backing away and nearly tripping over the debris. Dust and oil stained her clothes, her hands, her hair and her face. She gave him a solemn nod, and he nodded back.

  He turned to catch a blow from the android.

  Now that they stood face to face, the monstrous machine was even bigger, and the heat coming from its vents were enough to sear Jeremiah’s eyebrows. He took note of that as the robotic fist surged in an overhand. With excitement, Jeremiah met the android with his own attack.

  Durability didn’t mean strength.

  Jeremiah couldn’t match a fist with his oversized opponent, so he used his stomach instead.

  His face swelled up and his stomach erupted from his throat, flinging out like a frog tongue. Though he was flesh and blood, the clang sound might as well have been the clash of swords. The androids fist flung back as Jeremiah’s stomach easily sent it backward. Its footing went with its fist, stumbling backwards. Jeremiah wasted no time with his opening, quickly inhaling his stomach back in.

  Jeremiah passed the durability test.

  My turn.

  With a manic smile, Jeremiah proved his progress by sending a fist into the round torso of the android. His punch landed a dent and nothing more. No broken fingers, but he may as well have punched a brick wall.

  More, more, until I get through!

  It was far from a well-thought out plan, but punching a hole through the machine will be catastrophic for it no matter what. What a feeling! Jeremiah thought as he sent a flurry of punches into the dent in the robot’s chest. Jeremiah started laughing as the dent grew larger. He could never have done this, even a month ago. He was a superhero now! Who would look down on him for his face, his powers? But he needed more. He needed to ride this high for as long as he could. Who knew the next time he’d feel this powerful?

  With what he thought would be the deciding punch, Jeremiah pulled back a fist and laughed,

  “Hahaha! I’m a super-”

  For the second time today, Jeremiah was sent flying. The android regained its footing. In the midst of Jeremiah’s combo, it had thrown a gigantic fist into Jeremiah's side. Even then, Jeremiah understood that he should have been dead. His face was definitely broken, but his brains were in place. The same could not be said for the corpses his body floated over.

  Somehow he landed in a chair. Dazed, he looked down and realized he never hit the ground.

  “What the hell was that?!” Ashley shouted. She held her hands up, and it finally clicked for Jeremiah that she telekinetically held the wooden chair in mid-air, using it like a baseball glove to catch him. Jeremiah slumped over to look down to her.

  “Nose is broken.” He said.

  “Good, you deserve it for being stupid.”

  “That hurts more than the robo-punch, somehow.”

  Ashley let the chair slowly touch the ground.

  “I doubt it. Anyways, I noticed something.”

  Jeremiah eyes the machine from afar. It slowly turned to face them, heat jetting out from its robotic joints. It was moving slowly all of a sudden. Why?

  “This thing is doing its best not to overheat.” Ashley said.

  “Is that why it’s moving slower? It’s basically still.”

  “So you noticed it too? I bet you didn’t notice its core opens up when it throws a punch.”

  “Well yeah, I was a bit busy getting punched.”

  “Which was your fault, by the way.”

  “We established this, Ashley.”

  Jeremiah kept staring at the machine through his only functioning eye. It wasn’t attempting to chase them down. Instead it kept rolling its shoulders forward, as if it were stretching. Small slit-like vents opened, revealing the glowing red core. A malfunction in its robotic limbs, maybe?

  The chair floated with Jeremiah to the relative safety of the scorched pillar Ashley leaned against. Jeremiah ignored the throbbing, burning pain as he strategized. Attacking when it still makes the most sense, but how? Ashley interrupted at the perfect moment, like usual.

  “If this happened before, this thing probably got taken down eventually, right?”

  “Yeah, by the hero Irisiri. It’s how he ranked up to Virtue.”

  “So then we just, like, do what he did.”

  Jeremiah chuckled, which was more like a wheeze with his broken nose.

  “Not likely, since he used his mirror Blessing to reflect the missiles back to. . .”

  And then, Jeremiah recalled Natali’s words from earlier.

  A malfunction occurred. It went berserk somehow, and escaped from AmaTek Lab 1 with an arsenal of ammunition.

  “I think his core opens up anytime he attacks, so if we. . .” Ashley faltered as she noticed Jeremiah’s horrified expression.

  “Natali said it had an arsenal of ammunition.”

  Ashley stared at Jeremiah, then the machine.

  “Ohhhh.” She said, “Oh shit.”

  They both peeked out from the podium to see what the robot was up to.

  Its shoulders finished its ritual by popping open to the sides like shoulderpads. They could feel the heat from where they stood. With a deafening whistle accompanied by that blaring roar, two rockets shot out from the openings. Jeremiah and Ashley stood frozen for a moment, watching as the rockets rose towards the high ceiling just before careening downwards, flying down to meet their targets.

  Jeremiah wasn’t so sure if nanomachines could protect him from that. He lurched off of the chair, ignoring the heaviness in his head.

  “Ashley,” Jeremiah pointed to the wooden chair. “Hit the rocket!”

  “Got it!”

  She raised one hand and the chair lifted in the air. Ashley flicked a hand towards the missile heading for her. The chair splintered into pieces against the projectile, but it didn’t explode. Instead, its trajectory changed as it jetted far off onto the second floor. Only then did the explosion shake the mall.

  It doesn’t explode on impact? Jeremiah’s eyes widened. He stared up towards the missile, frantically pacing side to side. If Irisiri reflected the missiles back, then maybe I. . .Was it the crushed nose or the desperate plan brewing in his head that made his breathing so harsh? His mind raced with his legs, and he came to a risky, insane conclusion.

  “I’ll knock this one out of the way too!” Ashley shouted.

  “No! I got it!”

  “What?!”

  In the second and a half he had left, Jeremiah didn’t duck for cover. He crouched low, arms stretched out. The nose of the missile came within inches of his face, and then. . .

  “But I have no choice.” Mr. Hill’s voice cracked.

  Jeremiah remembered how his Instructor’s face contorted in shame.

  “What you twelve have been tasked with. . .” His eyes grew wet.

  “I don’t understand.” Jeremiah uttered.

  “. . .You’ll always be up against something more than you. It will never be a fair fight for you. For that, I am so sorry.”

  Mr. Hill lowered himself to one knee, seeking eye level with Jeremiah. There was a lost, scared, sorrowful child behind Mr. Hill’s eyes.

  “I know this doesn’t make sense right now, but you kids. . .”

  Jeremiah caught the missile with his bare hands.

  “Are my heroes.”

  Before the missile could explode, and before his seared hands would fail him, Jeremiah opened his mouth. The opening of his stomach bulged out from his throat. He made sure it didn’t come out enough to fall out, but just enough for his plan to succeed.

  As if the missile was the size of a piece of bread, Jeremiah’s Blessing swallowed it whole.

  Jeremiah could only regain that adrenaline-fueled smile again. Somewhere, in another world, he heard Ashley screaming in alarm, concern, or confusion. Maybe all of them. It didn’t matter. Everything was going right. The machine remained still, smoky hot air blasting out from vents in its frame. Ashley’s observance once again proved true. It won’t move for a few more seconds.

  Jeremiah dashed towards the machine, hopping over wreckage and bodies alike. He recalled that time they had once tried getting that cat out of a tree. Mr. Hill had explained Jeremiah’s powers better than he ever could. “Jeremiah’s Blessing takes the form of an ejectable frog stomach,” Mr. Hill said. “. . .whatever he chooses to remain untouched in his stomach will stay that way.”

  Which meant the missile was still sitting in his stomach, in the exact same condition it was in when Jeremiah swallowed it.

  He stood a few yards away from the overheating automaton, hesitating only to judge the blast radius. Heat-seeking or not, the missile won’t be able to make a 180-degree turn before blowing up. Satisfied, Jeremiah allowed his stomach to point out of his mouth.

  Mr. Hill, I won’t let you down.

  No one ever expected anything from someone like me. Not until now.

  I’ll do it. I’ll be your hero.

  He regurgitated the missile. It shot out from his mouth, and Jeremiah noted how it seemed to grow from nothing into its original size. The missile made a desperate curve to reclaim its target. It failed, only slamming into the side of the machine instead of dead on. And then, it exploded.

  Once again, Jeremiah found himself flying backwards. He attempted to use his hands to shield himself. When he could barely move them, he looked down.

  “Oh.” Jeremiah stared at his severely burnt limbs, scarred from holding the missile. He looked at the ruined fountain statue he was about to hit. Jeremiah lamented the incoming headache.

  It didn’t matter. The impact put him to sleep.